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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28053855">Woes Mended</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Largishcat/pseuds/Largishcat'>Largishcat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lovecraft Country (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bisexual Female Character, Character Study, F/F, Ruby-centric (Lovecraft Country), mid-season 1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:20:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28053855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Largishcat/pseuds/Largishcat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You look like one of those new Barbie dolls they have in the toy shop window downtown,” Ruby said. “Your eyes are too big for your face, you got no color, and you’re about an inch wide.”</p><p>One side of Christina’s mouth quirked up, just a little. She never smiled with her eyes when she was herself, even when she meant it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ruby Baptiste/Christina Braithwhite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Woes Mended</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts">LittleRaven</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ruby and Christina hang out, have a conversation. Set nebulous season 1. Anachronisms abound. Featuring: Ruby’s bisexual crisis.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was hot outside, but in the shady drawing room it was cool. Sheltered from the fuss and heat. Ruby had an electric fan gently lifting the hairs on her arms, a nice glass of lemonade—full of ice and mint leaves and a generous splash of gin—sweating on the table, and a thin hardback full of poetry on her lap. </p><p>Ruby’d always liked poetry, but this stuff was translated from French or Italian or German or something, and she couldn’t get more than a line or two before getting sucked back into her own thoughts. She felt itchy in her skin, like there was something she was forgetting to do. She felt like that a lot. She hadn’t realized how much until she started wearing someone else’s skin. That was the only time the feeling went away.</p><p>There was a <i>tink</i> form across the room, drawing Ruby’s eyes up as Christina sipped her own lemonade, teeth clicking against the glass. Christina met her eyes and offered her a distracted smile before going back to the mass of papers spread across the coffee table in front of her.</p><p>Ruby had convinced her to come up out of her cave for the day. She’d intended to have a nice afternoon, drinking on a silk couch with her feet up, watching her witch woman do witch work. </p><p>She couldn’t shake the itch, though, and the lemonade tasted like guilt more than sugar. Ruby sighed, closing her eyes, trying to relax. Just <i>trying</i> to forget all the wrongs things in the world that somebody had to fix, but dammit not <i>today</i>.</p><p>“What’s making you sigh?” Christina asked. She was looking at Ruby over an unrolled scroll when Ruby opened her eyes. There was a tiny blue stain on her lower lip, Ruby noticed, like she’d been gnawing on a pen.</p><p>“Can’t properly relax,” Ruby grunted, letting her book slide off her lap onto the couch cushions. “I just keep worrying about everything in circles.”</p><p>“What are you worried about?”</p><p>“I don’t know, all of it.” Ruby took a deep drink of her lemonade, the glass cold against her skin. “Keep wondering what crazy shit my sister is getting into while I’m sitting here.”</p><p>“Do you think she worries about you?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Do you think,” Christina said, “that your sister worries about you? Does she think about you and wonder if you’re safe? Does it drive her to distraction? Prevent her from enjoying herself? Does it effect her at all?”</p><p>Ruby sat up, planting her bare feet on the hardwood floor. “The fuck,” she said, “is that supposed to mean?”</p><p>Christina didn’t answer immediately, just looked at Ruby steadily with her blank, blue eyes. Ruby had never had the opportunity to look as hard or as long into blue eyes as she found herself doing so often these days, and they always looked wrong to her. Eyes weren’t meant to have that little color to them. That little warmth. Like a couple chunks of ice chipped out of one of those big blue glaciers you saw in National Geographic. Or maybe like a corpse’s, clouded over and blind.</p><p>“You should have more gin,” Christina said and Ruby blinked. “It’s in the cabinet. There should still be ice.”</p><p>“Fine,” Ruby said. “Yeah, sure.” She got up, knees cracking, and went to get more gin. Christina was right, that was the quickest way to stop thinking. “You want me to top you off?”</p><p>“Don’t put yourself to any trouble.”</p><p>Ruby topped her off anyway, sitting down next to her the chaise lounge she was perched on. “What are you working on?”</p><p>Christina slid over to allow Ruby room to look at her work. “Refining the potion formula, or trying to. Not a high priority right now, of course, but I,” she clicked her tongue, “needed a break from the immortality spell. Like you said, I was just going in circles.”</p><p>“You taking a break from work with more work?”</p><p>Christina made a humming noise, almost a laugh. She trailed her finger down the edge of a piece of paper. “I think I can control the duration, make the come down more predictable. There’s no reason the transformation couldn’t last weeks, longer. It just needs tweaking.”</p><p>Ruby licked her lips and noticed when Christina’s eyes flicked up to watch.</p><p>“You could see more of William,” Christina said quietly. Ruby became aware of how close they were, leant in together over papers full of diagrams and runes and formulas, some of which Ruby could almost read.</p><p>“I see plenty of William,” Ruby said, leaning back. “You saying I could be Hillary for more than a day?”</p><p>“Is that what you want?” Christina asked neutrally. </p><p>“Is that what <i>you</i> want?”</p><p>“I want to live forever,” Christina said, matter of fact. “I want to hold the world in the palm of my hand. I want my birthright. Everything else is window dressing.”</p><p>“That’s not an answer.”</p><p>Christina paused, looking Ruby up and down slowly. Ruby became very aware that she was wearing clothes Christina had bought her. “I like you best in your own skin,” Christina said, “but I’m not going to tell you not to use the potion, when I offered it to you and when I use it myself so liberally. If, assuming the ritual works and assuming my theories are correct, if you wanted to wear Hillary’s skin for months, years, I would help you do it. If you wanted to play house with William, we could do that. If you got tired of Hillary, you could pick any man or woman off the street and I’d make it happen. Once I’m immortal, there will be nothing to stop me doing whatsoever I please, and nothing stopping you either.”</p><p>Ruby had stopped breathing somewhere in the middle of that little speech. She exhaled, deliberately. “Play house?” she with a note in incredulity, choosing to ignore the part about being able to steal anybody’s skin she wanted.</p><p>“Mm, yes.” Christina reached out to slide her finger through the condensation on her glass. “You seemed to be having such fun showing off to the girls at the department store. They were jealous, of your handsome man and his expensive car.”</p><p>“Do you like being a man?” Ruby asked. It was something she had been wondering ever since the truth of William had been revealed. Christina seemed softer when she was wearing Williams’s skin. More carefree. Ruby didn’t want to admit to it in case Christina started in on her we-aren’t-so-different spiel again, but she thought she understood. Just a little. Why Christina might feel safer in that skin than in her own.</p><p>Christina pursed her lips, considering her words. “I would prefer to be myself, but there are times when I need to access certain things that I can’t access when I’m myself.” Her face twitched, some expression being smothered before it could manifest. Her eyes met Ruby’s, intense with something Ruby couldn’t put a name to. “What do you see, when you look at me, Ruby?”</p><p>Ruby paused, thinking. It was so obviously a loaded question, but Ruby didn’t know if the barrel was pointed at her or not.</p><p>“You look like one of those new Barbie dolls they have in the toy shop window downtown,” Ruby said. “Your eyes are too big for your face, you got no color, and you’re about an inch wide.”</p><p>One side of Christina’s mouth quirked up, just a little. She never smiled with her eyes when she was herself, even when she meant it. William was much freer with his smiles, but then again Hillary was much freer with her smiles than Ruby. It’s amazing what peace of mind wearing the right skin can bring a person.</p><p>“I love that about you, Ruby.” Christina propped her chin up on her hand. “You never mince words.”</p><p>“You sure I’m not just useful to you?” Ruby said.</p><p>“You are,” Christina admitted smoothly. “You’ve been very useful, and I think you will continue to be very useful. But that isn’t the only reason.”</p><p>“Would you ever hurt me?” Ruby asked, not sure why she was asking. It wasn’t a the kind of question she’d ever asked a woman before. It was the kind of question she’d whispered to men in the dark. And they always lied.</p><p>“Of course, I’d hurt you. If I needed to.” Christina said. <i>She</i> never bothered to lie. At least not that Ruby could tell.</p><p>“Right,” Ruby said. “Well, that sure makes me feel great about ‘playing house’.”</p><p>“You don’t want to be my kept woman?” Christina tilted her head to the side, hair falling in a flat sheet. “Or do you not think I could keep you?”</p><p>“You could keep me pretty well, I reckon.”</p><p>“I like you, Ruby,” Christina said. “I’ll keep you if I can.”</p>
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